Painting Roses
by Ephemeral Muse
Summary: He hated marshmallows. He hated flowers. But most of all, he despised the color white. But hate can easily turn into an obsession, or even an addiction. Implied Rape, Lime. 10069.


A/N: Uhm, most painful one-shot I ever wrote next to Plastic Angels? :( I'm so bad at 10069, it makes me sniffle. I'm afraid Mukuro as an uke is a bit too much for me, especially since I'm so comfortable with writing him as THE RAPIST rather than the RAPED. Lul. My old style is more pre-eminent in this fic than it was in the last one (2700), but I still changed a bunch of things. I'm still in my experimental stage, so sorry to anyone who thinks my 'new' writing style is awkward. ): Trying a ton of new stuff, including more sexual themes hurrrr. /will probably try writing lemons after this. Written for Dior Crystal's Angst Contest ROUND 2: 'Facade'! :)

Disclaimer: "Katekyo Hitman Reborn!"'s characters, plot, and all other affiliates of the manga and anime belong to Amino Akira, meaning it does not belong to me whatsoever. I own solely this piece of literature, and thus I would also appreciate it if fellow authors and writers do not steal any of my work. Thank you.

* * *

Painting Roses

_A ByakuranxMukuro One-Shot_

_" I have changed  
__Just like you__  
__Your concrete heart isn't beating  
__And I've tried to  
__Make it come alive"  
__-"Still Alive" by Lisa Miskovsky_

* * *

His footsteps echoed through the pristine marble halls. As he continued to walk along the ivory walls, his alabaster boots squeaked against the freshly mopped ivory tile. Everything in this building, including him, was dressed in white.

Having knocked on the expectantly silver door, he walked in only to see that the arguably most annoying thing on the face of the planet wasn't there yet. Quietly, he mused to himself as to what type of excuse he would have to make in order to get out of the base quickly and easily.

If it wasn't enough for the abomination, who referred to himself as a "human being", to have his whole fortress covered with the color, he even had his hair bleached as white as it could get.

Why was he putting up with that creature? Certainly not because the not-so-young-anymore Vongola asked him to. He was simply bored. The cold tube Mukuro called "home" didn't provide the best entertainment in the world, after all. Well, no matter. Whatever he didn't receive, he took with his own hands.

"Leo-kunnnn." Byakuran smiled as he walked into the room. Mukuro was not deceived in the slightest. He himself wore the same exact face when he was gaining Lanchia's trust many years ago, after all. He knew that the man standing before him was a wolf in sheep's clothing. No matter— he could easily take on that devil if the situation called for it.

Hiding his disdain from his impeccable face, the manservant named "Leo" smiled innocently and proceeded to greet his boss— the current bane to his existence. From the white Datura flowers he demanded to have in his room to the clearly unnatural white hair to even the white disturbingly sweet marshmallows he liked to eat, Byakuran was the epitome of unattractiveness.

_Mukuro hated the color white._

"Did you have a nice lunch?" 'Leo-kun' asked, proceeding to make idle conversation. Things were going just right. Byakuran already trusted him with some of the most important information of the Millefiore, and Mukuro had already infiltrated and fed the troops false information— now all that was left was getting out. It was a pity— when he had first heard of the Millefiore boss, he was looking forward to sleeping with him. After all, he had heard that the man had a nice body. Still, genetics wasn't enough to justify that man's disgusting personality and grotesque obsession with that horrid color. But no matter: what happened has happened. The mission still came first— his pride was at stake, after all.

* * *

He didn't even know what hurt more: the wounds that were burned into his skin, the bleeding cavity where his right eye belonged, or the lack of oxygen in his lungs. All he knew was that he hurt everywhere, all his energy consumed by the overwhelming pain that continued to crash over his entire body in waves of molten lava. A pale hand, seemingly so delicate, continued to squeeze his neck ruthlessly. The owner of the offending limb smiled, unperturbed by the blood trickling onto his hand and dripping on the once stainless ceramic floor.

"Fuu, I'll admit that you were indeed a wonderful after-meal workout," chuckled Byakuran. Mukuro felt the vibrations of the other's laughter against his throat, an uncomfortable buzzing amidst the haziness. "So, _won't you submit to me now?_"

Escape was futile. For some reason beyond his own comprehension, he could not leave from this fragile body that threatened to break with every thrust so long as he was still in this room. Not that he could leave the room to begin with— shackles of steel bound his wrists, pinned against the couch's arm by the same hand that was suffocating him less than an hour ago. But God, if he thought his wounds had hurt before...they were mere papercuts compared to the burning torture he was undergoing at that moment. He panted, his face flushing as the searing pain melted into a guilty pleasure that pulsed with his erratic heartbeat. Despite being so battered and abused, his body betrayed him and gave in to the ecstasy that threatened to consume his whole. He bit his lip until it bled as the devil who was pressing against him started slamming into him even harder, even faster.

"Ahh-_Ah_!"

_What he didn't know was that this was only the beginning._

* * *

He lay down on the couch, body still hurting despite a day having passed. His wrist was now shackled to the leg of the couch, keeping him in the room while Byakuran left to attend to other matters. _Like a dog_, he thought with vehemence.

Still, he mused, what should be his next step? Leaving was obviously not permitted nor reasonable, or even possible at this stage. He had feigned weakness when that monster in white assaulted him, if only to make the whole process easier. Doubtless he would have been the one to triumph if he had gone with full power and the intent to kill from the beginning, though. It was simply a matter of tact. The naïve Vongola would need the information, and submitting without resistance was the quickest way to have Byakuran out of the way so that he could be free to scheme. He sighed then, at a loss. It was easy to see that the best course of action to take was to stay with that walking marshmallow, but...

Mukuro had slept with countless women to get what he wanted, and even a large handful of men. Being on the receiving side though...his backside still ached, and the bruises that covered his body in a variety of interesting places wouldn't leave for another week. Mukuro was far from being a masochist.

Still, he supposed he could stay longer. Not for the sake of the Vongola, though. After all, he did have a few moments of curiosity in his life as to what was so appealing about being on the bottom. Hibari never did satisfy his inquiries.

* * *

Thirty days of interacting with nobody but the Millefiore boss was driving him to his wit's end. Whether it was rambling about "Shou-chan", force-feeding him those disgusting blobs of sugar, or pressing him against the cold floor and taking him by force without any foreplay or warning... his opinion of Byakuran had hardly changed.

_Yet._

Yet, for some unexplainable reason, he gradually started to stare at the only clock in the room intently every day. He started to sit there on the couch in his rumpled clothes, counting the seconds, minutes, even hours left till his captor came knocking. Every day. When had the plots to escape morphed into daydreams of the man in white?

No. It was only because there was nothing else he could do. In the empty, colorless room, he couldn't even communicate with Chrome. There was nothing, absolutely nothing else he could do _but_ stare at the clock.

"Neh, Muku-chan, you seem out of it today," teased Byakuran. The man was currently playing with the Mukuro's hair. Really, it was a wonder how he managed to keep his hair so shiny and untangled all the time! It was so long, so soft.

"Just thinking about when I could finally leave this place," replied 'Muku-chan' cooly. He was used to the other's antics, and simply closed his eyes when he felt fingers brushing through his locks. It wasn't as if he could fight, after all. That would ruin his whole plan. Not that it would make too much of a difference if he killed Byakuran at that point.

Wait. Since when did he refer to the white bimbo as 'Byakuran' in his head?

But when no reply came from the man sitting next to him, the sinking feeling in Mukuro's gut started to worsen. He had felt that something was wrong since over two months ago, but simply brushed it off. What was going on? He was almost afraid to turn and look at the other man's face. And when he did steal a glace at the Byakuran's all-knowing smile, he regretted it instantly.

"Why, didn't you know? You could have left this body for quite some time! _The restrictions have been removed for over seven weeks~_"

The horror that was left unconcealed on his face was almost as good as the last three months of playing with the man himself, mused Byakuran.

* * *

The faint beeping of the machines that kept him alive was the first sign that he was back in his own body. _His own body._ All of the tension that had been bundled up for the last three months were suddenly released from his body. He was free. _He was free_. He opened the eye that wasn't restricted with a tube and peered around.

_Everything was black, without a single trace of white. _

That was the way things were supposed to be. So why, then, did he suddenly feel uncomfortable without a speck of that morbid color?

The days kept passing by unnoticed by the only inhabitant of the cell. After all, when there wasn't a single soul aside from him in this world of darkness, what was the point in keeping track of time? He should have checked in with Chrome and the others she was with, though. After all, didn't he go through three months of torture just to give them the secrets of the Millefiore? It would be such a waste if that information was left rotting in the cell that he was confined in.

He went through all that trouble. So why, then, did he still refuse to give away the secrets that belonged to that freak?

His body ached. It ached even though it was no longer touched and abused mercilessly. His boy hurt even though the bruises had faded a long ago. His wrist itched even though there was no longer a silver cuff attached to it. His head still hurt even though he didn't have to think about anything anymore.

His heart ached, but he didn't know why. After all, wasn't this his own heaven? It was quiet. There was nobody here to bother him. There was nobody. There was nothing. It was his Utopia.

Why, then, was this blackness suffocating him?

Even though he kept asking himself those questions, the foreboding feeling in the back of his mind told him that he already knew the answer.

And Mukuro, grimacing, realized that he had been the victim all along. From the beginning, Byakuran never cared. He was only meant to be an entertaining past-time, a chocolate biscuit as a break from the endless bags of marshmallows the man consumed.

_But he knew that since the beginning, didn't he._

* * *

Strangely enough, the body was sleeping in its old bed in the soldiers' quarters. As if the events of the last three months never occurred. After slipping on the crisp, white clothing and tying his white boots, he walked out, knowing exactly where to go despite his long absence from those white hallways. And, just like that day three months ago, he stood in front of a white door. He had brushed his hand over the door, grimacing at his own stupidity before opening it without knocking.

Before he could even realize what happened, he was already lying on the worn out sofa, the man he hated without a doubt straddling him.

"My, my, fancy seeing you here," smiled Byakuran.

"I really hate you more than everything, you know that?" spat out Mukuro, smirking as if he was only there to gather information. It was true, though— the only fact that Mukuro would ever say to him. He did hate him— he hated him from the very beginning, and his hate had transformed into a twisted, morbid form of obsession that left him waiting to be abused.

But Byakuran just smiled. "You know, I usually only want what I can't have. But I'll make an exception just because you're so cute."

_I only want what I can't have._ But he knew that from the beginning, didn't he? He knew that if he came back, he wouldn't be loved. He wouldn't be treated the same as "Shou-chan", or the young Vongola. He came back knowing that he would only be used without a speck of affection.

He was merely a toy. A plaything that only held interest for a few moments before being thrown aside. But he still came back. He took the abuse. He took the humiliation, the pain, the everything that was thrown at him.

* * *

They say that once a blind man sees light, he'll kill himself before being forced into the darkness again. _Maybe that was it_, Mukuro thought bitterly.

He had never hated something so much before, and now he can't even stay away from him. Byakuran had morphed from a poison to a drug before Mukuro even realized it. _And now he was an addict, in too deep to quit._

Even though he'll kill himself before saying it out loud, even though he'll spit out insults and words of spite till the day he dies...

_Even though he hates the color white, he can't live without it anymore._

* * *

Rewrote certain parts that I was unhappy with, and corrected a bit of grammar mishaps on my part. :) Still don't really like this fic, but hey—I don't like most of my ficlets. Byakuran, though, just makes my life worse orz. **Don't forget to review**, or or or. Uhh. **Mukuro turns buff.** D:


End file.
